Pokemon Go Has Two New Shiny Pokemon

Earlier today, Pokemon Go added another wave of Pokemon that were originally added to franchise in Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. This wave contains mainly Flying-Type Pokemon, including the powerful Pokemon Rayquaza and Salamence.

Pokemon Go has been adding these Pokemon in waves throughout the last few months, and have regularly snuck in some surprises with each batch. As with the other four waves of new "Gen 3" Pokemon, Pokemon Go developers also snuck in a couple of new Shiny Pokemon to the game. Players can now find Shiny versions of Swablu and Altaria in the game.

Shiny Pokemon are variant colored versions of Pokemon that are typically extremely rare. While there's no advantage to having a Shiny Pokemon in battle, many Pokemon trainers love Shiny Pokemon due to their rarity. Both Swablu and Altaria have gold-colored bodies instead of their usual bright blue.

Currently, players can only find Swablu in the wild, so they'll need to do some major grinding in order to get a Shiny Altaria. Swablu requires 400 candies to evolve into its fluffier flying form. Neither Swablu or Altaria are exceptionally useful Pokemon, although the prospect of having a golden bird should convince plenty of trainers to grind for those Swablu candies. Swablu can also be faced as a new Tier 1 Raid Boss.

Swablu and Altaria join Aron, Lairon, Aggron, Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu, Magikarp, Gyarados, Shuppet, Banette, Absol, Mawile, Snorunt, Glalie, Sableye, Duskull, and Dusclops as having Shiny Pokemon available in the game. With the exception of Absol and Mawile, these Pokemon can all be found by catching them in the wild.

There's plenty of other Pokemon surprises that are still being looked at. It appears that the new wave of Pokemon includes two new regional-exclusive Pokemon, Illumise and Volbeat, along with the strange Castform, which changes forms based on the weather. Pokemon Go also did a major re-work of raid bosses, with tons of new Raid Bosses for players to battle.

We'll have full Pokemon Go coverage throughout the weekend, so keep tuned for more information!